This is a big deal, and I’m surprised it hasn’t been reported more forcefully by the mainstream media.

I guess they are too busy with the Ferguson hype to report a real news story that could have ramifications for America and her allies. Why do real news reporting when you can push race-baiting lies to a willing public? But, that’s for another column.

The new U.S. Army commander in Europe, Lt. Gen Frederick “Ben” Hodges, has stated his intention to move about 100 Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles to forward bases in Poland and the Baltics for use by U.S. troops on rotation to the region. This effort will be a stepped-up effort to counter Russian aggression in the region.

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Russia has been repeatedly violating Baltic and other NATO and friendly country airspace in the region for some time now. Hodges believes this is an effort to weaken NATO psychologically and sow the seeds of doubt in Eastern NATO countries so that other members of the alliance would come to their aide in the event of a Russian attack.

The rotations of U.S. troops on training missions in Eastern Europe would provide “deterrence against Russian aggression,” Hodges said. “I don’t think that Russia has any intention of some sort of a conventional attack into NATO territory because they know that would generate an Article 5 response. I think that what they [the Russians] do want to do is to create that ambiguity, plant the seeds of uncertainty so that the alliance members lose confidence that the rest of the alliance would come to their aid if they were, in fact, attacked,” Hodges said.

Hodges says he will not be in the market to build new facilities but would be looking to use existing sites to store and maintain the equipment for training purposes. For their part, the Eastern European NATO countries such as Poland and the Baltics have been screaming for some time now for a stepped-up response to the perceived Russian threat on their borders. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has certainly raised their awareness of their Slavic brethren to the East.

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It remains to be seen how much further this tit-for-tat escalation will be carried forward by Moscow, now that real American boots and armor will be on the ground. It seems that if President Putin was looking to provoke a response from the American military, he got it.